🌌 ASCILINE Engine

ASCILINE is a high-performance, real-time ASCII video rendering engine for the web. It streams video frames from a Python backend directly into a web browser at 60 FPS using binary WebSockets and HTML5 Canvas.

🚀 Key Features

• Real-Time Streaming: Low-latency video-to-ASCII conversion.
• High Performance: Uses HTML5 Canvas for rendering instead of heavy DOM elements, enabling 60 FPS playback.
• Binary Protocol: Frames are encoded into Uint8Array (binary) for efficient bandwidth usage.
• Multiple Color Modes: Supports everything from classic B&W to 16M color ultra-fidelity.
• Modern Aesthetic: Premium dark-mode UI with interactive ripple dissolve effects.

🛠️ Architecture

1. Backend (Python/FastAPI): Decodes video using OpenCV, maps pixels to ASCII characters via NumPy, and streams binary data.
2. Frontend (Vanilla JS): Receives binary frames via WebSockets, manages a jitter buffer, and renders to a Canvas grid.
3. Communication: Optimized WebSocket protocol with a custom INIT handshake for dynamic resolution/FPS adjustment.

📦 Installation

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/yourusername/ASCILINE.git
cd ASCILINE

2. Install dependencies

pip install fastapi uvicorn opencv-python numpy websockets

3. Run the engine

Place a video.mp4 in the root directory and start the server:

python stream_server.py

Open http://localhost:8000 in your browser.

🎨 Customization

You can easily customize the look and feel of the engine:

Styling

Edit style.css to change the accent colors and typography using CSS variables:

:root {
    --accent-color: #00ff41; /* Classic Matrix Green */
    --bg-color: #050505;
}

Rendering Modes

The engine supports different fidelity levels via the --mode flag:

• 1: Black & White (DOM mode)
• 2: 512 Colors
• 3: 32K Colors
• 4: 262K Colors
• 5: 16M Colors (Ultra)

python stream_server.py --mode 5 --cols 240 --rows 100

📜 License

MIT License. Feel free to use and abuse for your own ASCII adventures!